Make A Difference This Month

Between obligations at work and at home, it can be easy to feel a bit spent by the end of your night. While it’s important to give your all to your career and to those in your inner circle, however, it’s valuable to save a bit of your energy for another cause: your community. This Volunteer Month is a perfect opportunity to reignite your drive for helping others—in turn, you will also help yourself and your career!

The word “volunteering” may bring to mind images of large-scale clean-up projects or involved mentoring programs. These are certainly wonderful ways to give back, but volunteering doesn’t have to take a lot of time to still have a huge impact. For instance, a group of Integrity Staffing Solutions employees recently spent the day at Friendship House in Delaware, a homeless services organization with which we have an ongoing relationship. In just a handful of hours, our employees were able to complete meaningful work and develop lasting connections with both the organization and the people it serves.

Such volunteer opportunities can have reverberating effects on both your personal and professional lives. In particular, volunteering can:

Increase fulfillment

According to a recent Deloitte study, nearly three-quarters of employees surveyed who had participated in a corporate volunteering project said their involvement gave them a stronger sense of purpose. And 77% said it helped support their wellbeing. Those feelings can carry over into your work and your personal life, with the effects lasting long after the volunteering shift ends.

Spark your professional passion

While volunteering is meant to give back to others, volunteers can take just as much from the experience! Lending your skills to the community may help show you activities that bring you true enjoyment—communicating with others, serving as a leader, working as a team—that you can use as inspiration for finding your next role. At Integrity, we work with our associates to align their roles with their interests and passions, so discovering where those lie—through volunteering—can give you a big leg up in landing a job that resonates with you.

Boost confidence

Helping others may make you feel like patting yourself on the back—and you should! The more pride and confidence you have in yourself, the more likely you are to strive to meet your full potential.

Build critical skills

Volunteer opportunities usually aren’t too taxing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pick up some new skills. For instance, you may need to try your hand at public speaking and experiment with a new piece of technology to get the job done. Even if you haven’t perfected those skills, you have a great foundation to build on (and some new material to add to the resume!).

Create new connections

Above all, volunteering is all about community. For volunteers, the people you serve and those you work alongside may be individuals you would’ve never had the chance to interact with previously. That diversity can bring new ideas, fresh inspiration and different perspectives—which are key to personal and professional growth.

As we celebrate Volunteer Month this April, carve out some time in your schedule to give back to the community—you might be surprised by just how much you gain!